Page 2009 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

63 IT

Against my love shall be, as I am now,

With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’er-worn;
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night,

And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life:
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

And they shall live, and he in them still green.